On Food: Passover brings out the recipes and debates over matzoh ball soup

By HSIAO-CHING CHOU, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOOD EDITOR

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Photo: Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Who makes the best matzoh ball soup? Probably the best answer is the person who made the soup you're eating, but this time of year the question is open to much debate.

Who makes the best matzoh ball soup? Probably the best answer is the person who made the soup you're eating, but this time of year the question is open to much debate.

Photo: Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

On Food: Passover brings out the recipes and debates over matzoh ball soup

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A relationship with any chicken soup takes love, patience and care. You have to start with great "genes" by buying a good chicken and giving it a long, warm bath with tub toys such as onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and maybe a leek, some garlic cloves and parsnip. It will take hours to draw out all the personality traits that a grownup stock requires, but a soup is better with a solid foundation.

A relationship with matzoh (or matzo or matzot or matzah) ball soup, however, takes all that and a tolerance for some friendly debate. A single broth or double? Sinker matzoh balls or floaters? Softball or golf ball size? Dill or no dill? Traditional or modern? East Coast or other? My mother's or yours?

This is the soup that makes its appearance at Passover (which begins at sundown Saturday), or during regular family meals, or when someone is sick, or when the future son-in-law comes for dinner -- apparently, the half-joking question from his buddies after the fact is, "Can you live with that matzoh soup for the rest of your life?"

So ubiquitous and powerful is this soup that a conversation about its preparation can wend its way back and forth across generations: my grandmother, mother or aunt did it this way or that. Ask who has the best version and the first response is always, "You mean other than mine?"

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If a recipe is actually imparted, it is always empirical and assumes you know how to cook.

"What's most important is the soup," says Leah Grossman, former owner of Boulangerie in Wallingford. "You have to make really good chicken soup.

"The vegetables that go in it are a little bit of celery, mostly the leaves, and turnips and rutabagas and onions. I put in cloves of garlic. This is my mother's recipe, but she never put in garlic. I do. And a whole chicken."

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More specifically, Grossman starts by sauteing roughly chopped onions in a little olive oil, just a tablespoon, until they're soft. She adds the carrot rounds and sautes that. She dices the turnips, parsnips and rutabaga before adding them to the onions and carrots. Instead of celery ribs, she adds the celery leaves. She lets this mixture sweat -- or cook over low heat until everything is tender and the flavors have begun to develop and meld.

"Then you add water. The water needs to cover the chicken."

When it comes to matzoh balls, she confides, she breaks all her personal rules of cooking from scratch.

"As a food person and an experimenter, I've done extensive research on matzoh balls. I just have to admit, there is nothing that equals the ones that come from a package -- and I'm a pretty good cook and baker."

She likes big and fluffy matzoh balls, so she doesn't cook them as long as the box recommends.

"They don't take that long at all," she says. "You can watch them and once they start rising to the surface, they're pretty much done."

Grossman's husband, Arthur, chimes in that the longer the matzoh balls boil, the harder they get. (Other sources say the opposite is true. Who's right is a matter of opinion.)

And you boil the matzoh in salted water, right?

"No, no, no," she exclaims. "You cook it in the soup."

Her soup simmers for a minimum of an hour, and about 15 minutes before serving, she drops the matzoh balls in to cook. This dish is a Passover constant for the Grossmans (though their daughter and her husband are vegetarians and Leah Grossman makes a meatless version to accommodate them).

For Karen Binder, matzoh soup is not limited to the holiday. She makes it when someone requests it or when her daughter comes home to visit.

"It's the quintessential love potion for Jews," says Binder, who owns Madison Park Cafe and caters on the side to many Jewish customers.

She starts her soup in a pot with a whole kosher chicken that she covers with cold water.

"I let the water come to a boil, scrape off the (scum) on top with a strainer, and I put in an onion, four carrots, two turnips peeled and quartered. I put in one celery rib. Then I take the dill shaker and shake until the whole top has a layer of dill -- it's probably about a tablespoon or a little more. I put half a lemon and a garlic clove -- in deference to my mother who died. And I cook it, covered, for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

"Once it boils, I skim off the scum again. I put in salt. I hold the salt and shake so that the whole top is covered. And black pepper, too. Some people don't use black pepper because it shows up in the soup, but I like it."

She lets the soup cool on the stove and then stores it in the refrigerator until the next day when she can scrape off the fat that has risen and gelled at the surface. As she reheats the soup, she takes the chicken meat off the bone, which then is added back to the pot. The matzoh balls are cooked separately -- boiled in salted water for 40 minutes -- and placed in the soup at the very last minute just to heat through.

He begins his soup by making chicken stock, which simmers for a minimum of six to eight hours.

"A true chicken soup has to be done with a stock," he insists. "It's double-enriched."

Lots of garlic and a whole "tomaytah" -- can't take the New Yorker out of Handler -- are the secret ingredients. The tomato, he explains, adds a rich, golden color. It's not enough to add a lot of flavor, but it gives the stock a tint.

"I like to use the whole chicken and the backs and necks, anything with marrow. That's where a lot of the flavor is."

Handler doesn't add any salt into the stock, instead letting it sit in the refrigerator overnight to mingle. The next morning, he strains the stock and starts again by adding a fresh whole chicken, with extra necks and backs, and fresh aromatic vegetables, such as celery, carrots, parsnips, garlic and maybe some leeks.

This soup simmers for two to three hours before the matzoh balls, which are boiled separately under cover, are added. Handler's are floaters, though they're so big their tops extend beyond the surface of the soup in the bowl.

Called Bubbie's Chicken With Matzoh, the soup is a best seller at Eats. Two weeks before the beginning of Passover, Handler had orders totaling nearly 20 gallons for the special day.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and the fat together. Stir in the matzoh meal, salt and parsley. Add the chicken soup or water. Refrigerate 1 hour or more, to permit the meal to absorb the liquids.

In a 6-quart pot with a lid, bring 4 quarts of salted water to a boil. Reduce the water to a simmer and drop in balls of the matzoh mixture about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Cover the pot and cook just at a simmer 20-40 minutes. When ready, place in soup to serve.

From "Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook"

SLOW-COOKED CHICKEN STOCK

MAKES ABOUT 4 QUARTS

1 whole chicken, about 3 pounds

1 stalk celery, broken in half

10 black peppercorns

3-4 carrots, if skinny, or 1 large carrot, peeled

1 medium-size yellow onion, halved and peeled

1 small to medium leek, white part only

1 whole red tomato

1 medium parsnip, peeled

In a stockpot, combine chicken with enough cold water to cover the bird. Add the remaining ingredients. The vegetables don't need to be cut into small pieces. Leave them whole or cut them down only enough so that they fit into the pot.

Bring the mixture to a boil and lower the heat. Skim the scum off the surface either with a spoon or a small strainer. You will have to repeat this a few times.

Let the stock simmer on low 6-8 hours. It will cook down a bit, so you may have to add a little water to make up the difference. Taste the stock. Even without seasoning, it will have a good chicken flavor.

Let cool for about an hour and strain the broth into another container. Finish cooling in the refrigerator. You can remove the chicken meat from the bones and reserve for the final soup or for another purpose, such as chicken salad.

When chilled, you will be able to scrape the fat off the surface. The stock is ready to use.

To continue to make a soup, put the stock in a clean stockpot. Add a whole chicken. If needed, add water to cover the chicken. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to low. Skim the scum. Add vegetables of choice, such as chunks of peeled carrots and parsnips, and simmer for a couple of hours. Add salt and pepper to taste along the way. You may have to adjust for seasoning a few times throughout the cooking.

From Seattle P-I

The following recipe for matzoh balls is untraditional, but fans enjoy the twist.

Put the matzoh meal in a mixing bowl with the eggs, parsley, 1 tablespoon of the oil or chicken fat and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well with a fork. Add enough water to make a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Saute the onions in 1 tablespoon of the rendered fat or oil until soft. Add the livers. Continue sauteing about 7 minutes or until the liver is cooked through. Cool slightly and remove the liver and onions to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse, using a metal blade, until coarsely chopped.

Roll about 2 tablespoons of the matzoh dough between your palms into a ball. Using your finger, make a hole in center of the ball and stuff a heaping teaspoon of the liver filling into the hole. Then roll the dough back into a ball, closing the hole. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Fry the matzoh balls in the remaining tablespoon of chicken fat or oil until lightly browned.

In a soup pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Place the browned matzoh balls in the simmering liquid and cook for about 12 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the eggs. Stir in 1 egg at a time with a wooden spoon until all 4 eggs are incorporated. Refrigerate a few hours or overnight.

Bring an 8- to 10-quart pot of water to a boil. Add a tablespoon of salt. Wet your hands with warm water and form the mixture into balls the size of walnuts. Drop into boiling water, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes, or until the matzoh balls are fluffy and floating at the top. Remove with a slotted spoon to bowls of hot chicken soup.